CHAPTER 13:WORD CONSCIOUSNESS

Stacy Gorseth

What?

Word Consciousness: interest in and awareness of words. (Anderson and Nagy 1992; Graves and Watts-Taffe 2002)

What?

Adept Diction: the skillful use of words in speech and writing. (Graves 2000)

Teachers can demonstrate diction in their personal word choice.

Teachers can point out diction in texts that students are reading.

Teachers can prompt students to expand their own diction.

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

What?

Word Play: is a playful attitude toward words in particular and language in general. (Graves 2000)

Word play makes language fun, motivates students, and engages them in active learning.

Categories: Expressions Names Word Formations Word Games Word Manipulations

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

What: Word Play Categories

Expressions: Proverbs: out of sight, out of mind Slang: junk food

Based on Johnson 2001

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

What: Word Play Categories

Names: Eponyms: (after a person) watt (after James

Watt) Toponyms: (after a place) sardines (after the

island of Sardinia)

Based on Johnson 2001

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

What: Word Play Categories

Word Formations: Acronyms: ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) Portmanteaus: motel (motor + hotel)

Based on Johnson 2001

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

What: Word Play Categories

Word Games Hink Pinks: angry father-mad dad Puns: Time flies like a bird; fruit flies like melon. Riddles: How can you make a baby buggy? (tickle

his toes) Tom Swifties: “Let’s hurry,” said Tom swiftly. Tongue Twisters: She sells seashells by the

seashore.

Based on Johnson 2001

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

What: Word Play Categories

Word Manipulations: Anagrams: (formed by rearranging letters of

another word) read-dear Palindromes: (read the same forward and

backward) mom, radar

Based on Johnson 2001

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

What?

Word histories and origins: (Knowing a words origin helps a student

further understand its meaning.) GreekLatinAnglo Saxon

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

Why?

“A huge step toward fostering word consciousness comes from simply recognizing that we want to make students consciously aware of words and their importance.”

(Graves, 2000)

How?

There are so many FUN ways to impart word consciousness to our students!

This book gives the following examples: Animal Idioms Question Master Game Number Prefix Riddles Antonym Scales Web Word Web Five Senses Simile Web Poetry Vocabulary Hotshot Notebook

How: Animal Idioms

An idiom is a phrase or expression in which the entire meaning is different from the usual meanings of the individual words within it.

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

Examples: Hold your horses Raining cats and dogs Ants in your pants

There are many ways to teach idioms and play with this concept. It really activates your student’s imaginations and gets them interested in learning!

How: Question Master Game

This game is used to teach and practice number prefixes.

It could be altered for other purposes as well.1. Choose a student to be “Question Master”.2. The question master then uses the Number Prefixes

chart (p. 585) to make up questions for the class to answer. (Ex: Would it be faster to count the legs on a bug called a millipede or on a bug called a centipede?)Let different students be the question master and

give them time to prepare or prepare questions for them. You could also provide the chart to students, have it on your smart board, or test them by not giving them the chart. This could also be a fun activity for math teachers!

How: Number Prefix Riddles

Number Prefix Riddles are riddles using number prefixes to make up “new” words.

Ex: What would you call a four armed octopus? (a quadropus)

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

Have students use the Number Prefix chart. They can break into groups, work individually, or work together as a class. You can then ask the class to answer the riddles and/or make a book of riddles. You could even illustrate the book! Again, this could be fun for math teachers!

How: Antonym Scales

Antonyms are words that have opposite meanings.

There are two types of antonyms: complementary and gradable.

In this activity, your students will play with gradable antonyms.

Gradable antonyms form opposite ends of a continual scale, like hot and cold.

Before starting this activity, explain to students that they are already familiar with this concept from school. (Ex: A to F grading scale)

Have students come up with their own gradable antonyms or provide choices, then have them create their scale. They could even add illustrations!

Excellent A

Good BFair CPoor DFailing F

Red HotBoilingHotWarmCoolColdFreezingSubzero

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

How: Web Word Web

Word webs make word meanings and relationships visible.

Word webs can be used in endless ways and are a great tool for pre-writing.

In this activity, you are showing students how language changes over time. Sometimes students don’t realize that the things they have haven’t always existed!

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

WEB

spider web

cobwebwebbed

web foot

World Wide Web (the Web)

Web site

Web page Webmaster

How: Five Senses Simile Web

Word webs make word meanings and relationships visible.

Word webs can be used in endless ways and are a great tool for pre-writing.

In this activity, students make a web using an abstract word and then using the fives senses, describe that word.

This activity can be used in teaching similes, or for vocabulary building…remind students that similes use like or as.

(Graves, Watts-Taffe 2002)

JOY

Smells like:Fresh cut grass

Tastes like: juicy watermelon

Looks like: colorful wildflowers

Sounds like: laughter

Feels like: being tickled

How: Poetry

Poetry is a fun way to use words in a creative way.

Two simple types of poetry that can be used in the class to encourage word play and review concepts such as adjectives, ing verbs, nouns, synonyms, and antonyms are:

Diamante poems Cinquain Poems

Diamante:Happy

Joy, delightLaughing, dancing, singing

Sunshine, friends, failure, lossCrying, sighing, moping

Gloomy, downSad

Cinquain:CanineFurry, funnyRunning, playing, waggingDogs will always be man’s best friendChewy

How: Vocabulary Hotshot Notebook

The Vocabulary Hotshot Notebook is designed to motivate student interest in words, provide a place to record new words, and to keep track of where they discover these words.

Have your students create a notebook or provide them with one.

You can assign points for new words discovered, different places it was seen or heard, how it was used, and what it means. There are charts on p. 602 and 603, or you could create your own system.

Students could receive an award of some kind for different levels reached or the number of words discovered.

(Honig, Diamond, and Gutlohn 2008)

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this chapter because it represents what I like to do in my classroom, which is to make language fun. I want my students to enjoy learning and to make it not feel like a chore to them. I like the idea of rewarding them for finding vocabulary words outside of school, in books, newspapers, conversations, products, etc…I already have a reward system in my class and this could work itself in nicely! My students enjoy using similes, metaphors, and idioms. This chapter gives great ideas on how to introduce vocabulary in fun ways and teaches figurative language at the same time. I like the antonym scales, the five senses simile web, the diamante poems, and the vocabulary notebook. The diamante poems, especially appeal to me because they help with learning synonyms, antonyms, verbs, adjectives, and nouns. It also introduces poetry in a relatively simple way.

Stacy Gorseth